Silence in the Echo Chamber on Gay Marriage

Josh Barro notes that in the wake of Lisa Murkowski becoming the third Republican senator to announce her support for gay marriage, “Conservative media outlets haven’t been attacking her for it. They haven’t been praising her either. They’ve been ignoring her.” As hard as it might be to think that a mere eight years after George W. Bush rode to re-election in no small part thanks to strategically timed anti-gay marriage state constitutional amendments, a red state senator publicly endorsed gay marriage to conservative…crickets.

Barro explains the silence as coming from the fact that “a substantial share of the staffers at these publications, especially the younger ones, are now supporters of gay marriage,” and “Those who oppose gay marriage are sick to death of talking about the issue. They know they are losing the fight over public opinion and that their complaints are not going to convince anybody.”

Allahpundit, one of the only conservative commentators to take up the announcement, helps explain some of the muted reaction: it’s not exactly what you would call a surprise. Murkowski has never been as party line as her state would indicate, and “with the country distracted by various scandals, a new war in Syria, and the joys of amnesty, it’s safe-ish for a centrist Republican from a reddish state to admit what the whole world already knew.” Especially since Murkowski had already sent plumes of smoke signals skyward to indicate this announcement was coming when she adopted President Obama’s famous hedge and declared her gay marriage views to be “evolving” a few months ago.

What is undeniable is that the United States is undergoing a relatively swift political swing in favor of gay marriage, and those in the media tend to congregate in urban communities that skew socially liberal in the first place. The shift in their circles is often already so complete that, as Barro puts it, “opposing gay marriage has come to be seen as rude in polite society.”

As far as the Washington crowd is concerned, the gay marriage fight is over, and has been for some time. When the first Senate hearings were held in 2011 on repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prevents states from being forced to recognize gay marriage licenses issued by other states, and prevents the federal government from recognizing them at all, Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans were MIA. Orrin Hatch made a brief statement against the repeal at the beginning, but soon all the Republican chairs were empty, despite pleas from traditional marriage advocates leading up to the hearing.

Now all that’s left, in the eyes of many, is to manage the moment until the rest of the country catches up.

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46 Responses to Silence in the Echo Chamber on Gay Marriage

No offense, but one of the main reasons nobody wants to talk about the issue anymore is because its being consistently defined, as in your article and in Josh Barro’s article as “gay marriage” rather than the more neutral “same-sex marriage”. When people oppose “gay marriage” it makes them sound as if they’re obsessed with gay people. It begs the question, why are you obsessed with what gay people do? And, why are you obsessed with sex?

The issue isn’t about gay people, and should have never been defined that way. Straight people aren’t going to be prohibited from entering same-sex marriages with each other. Gay people aren’t prohibited from traditional marriages. Progressives want this conversation to be about gay people, because then they win, but it isn’t about gay people. The issue is what marriage is about, whether allowing same-sex couples to form marriages substantially changes what marriage is, and what legal consequences follow from that, consequences which may be unintended.

Conservatives should be able to have a conversation about all of that without mentioning the word “gay.”

And they can, and that’s why the “march for all” (manif pour tous) in Paris was so successful, because the participants made clear this wasn’t about dividing gay people from straight people, and that gay people can be opposed to changing marriage, too.

So I am constantly and consistently disappointed when conservatives in the States don’t move away from this way of framing the issue.

The Conservative Party in the UK is taking the lead on SSM there. Getting married is a very conservative thing to do. The gay lobby is run by some very shrewd people. They focus on home-town issues like military service and marriage. It has helped change the image of gay men from having sex lives like stray cats.

The Catholic Church and the South appear to be the bastions of opposition. They are claiming immutable religious laws that they feel should be incorporated into our secular legal system.

The Baptist and Methodist tried alcohol prohibition before. That really undermined their credibility. The Catholic Church, which has always been shaky on the separation of church and state, claims that it cannot change its immutable laws. This has not always been true.

According to “Beggar Thy Neighbor” a history of debt by Charles Geisst, charging interest on loans was forbidden by the Catholic Church based on Deuteronomy. The punishment was excommunication. Nevertheless, the book reports:

“Throughout the mercantilist era, the Church steadfastly had refused to alter its position, but several decades into the Industrial Revolution it was apparent that the position was irreconcilable with modern business. Finally, in 1830 the Congregation of the Holy Office under Pope Pius VIII recognized interest and suggested that those who charged it would not be disturbed by the Church… Almost two thousand years of canon law slowly faded from view.”

Amazing how when everything else of the most serious crisis nature is occurring against the rights we already were supposed to have under the Constitution, what’s really important is “coming out” and an obsession for redefining marriage.

O Brave New World!

Hey, no problem, everything is being redefined these days.

Lies are truth, war is peace, freedom is slavery, torture is interrogation, surveillance is privacy.

Yes, and in fact a Slate writer recently declared that indifference to gay marriage and gay issues represents a “new form of homophobia.” I guess after the anti-gay zealots have been taken out, the mostly indifferent, probably-not-actually-anti-gay folks are the only ones remaining to drum into polite society.

So while the Catholic Bishops are in a total tizzy about paying for contraception, they seem to insist Caesar, and not God or the Church is responsible for the sick.

Yet they also assert marriage is a sacrament, but tell me if any priest in the USA will conduct a marriage without a certificate from Caesar (a marriage license for the dense)? If not, they have conceded that holy things are the business of the state first and church second.

Sometimes you can’t win and a stale-mate is better than being check-mated (pun intended). The winning move is to grab our pearls from the swine, to take the holy things back from dogs. Excuse me, I did not mean to insult either swine or dogs by the comparison to government. The Gaderene swine had more sense than the USCCB.

Reminds me of how it was also considered rude to be pro life and against abortion. Maybe it still is.
But among other things, cue the recent entrance stage left of pro choice posterboy and approved minority/AfroAmerikan Herr Kermit Gosnell.

Wait for it. An explosion still might come.

Of course our overlords don’t pay too much attention to the great unwashed when it comes to just about anything, the immigration/amnesty fiasco transpiring at the moment being a case in point.

Nevertheless there is no reasonable, constitutional right for the orwellian euphemism of homosexual marriage and it remains to be seen whether or not the real agenda, the idolizing and enabling of the totalitarian leviathan will gain even more momentum.

After all, that is who by default picks up the pieces after the neo cons and faux liberal/progressives finish destroying as much as they can, the family. The Weimar Republic after all, did precede the Fourth Reich.

But if revolutions generally eat their offspring/fore bearers/competitors, that does not bode well for anarchy, social and sexual, which includes homosexual marriage.

While I would agree that the Exodus Int. story is sad and a compromise, when in general the evangelical protestant church can’t get the 4th commandment straight, one suspects that opposition to those who trash the 7th will not be blessed.

Again, contra evolution, if marriage and the sabbath are creation ordinances built into the universe and human nature, they are a package deal. IOW if those who should know better don’t, it’s kind of hard to complain about the world.

The instant-meme that the 2004 election results in OH hinged on SSM has been subjected to some pretty serious inquiry over the years and, while it’s entered popular commentariat myth, it should be more as rhetorical artifact than fact.

“And they can, and that’s why the “march for all” (manif pour tous) in Paris was so successful, because the participants made clear this wasn’t about dividing gay people from straight people, and that gay people can be opposed to changing marriage, too.”

What is your definition of success? Sure there were lots of people but they failed to block gay marriage and the march ended in violence between far right supporters and police. Support for the law dropped by ten points but is still at 53% and 60%+ of people polled want the demonstrations to stop immediately. Plus Hollande’s popularity polling went up 4%.

Plus a bunch of people against the bill beat a gay guy to death and the leader of the far right party is blaming the law’s passage for his death. In the sense of – Well what do you expect if you pass laws like this – my supporters are naturally going to respond by beating people they disagree with to death.

And according Reuters:

“While leaders of Hollande’s Socialist Party denounced the protest against a law already passed in parliament and validated by the Constitutional Council, the conservative UMP party was split over whether to continue the rallies.

There were fewer Catholic priests than at earlier demonstrations. Several bishops joined previous marches, but distanced themselves as protests became more openly political.”

To paraphrase Douglas Addams -

This is obviously some strange usage of the word successful that I wasn’t previously aware of.

My definition is pretty simple, not just the fact that the support for the law dropped, but that so many in unprecedented numbers showed up, and just the fact that people were having a serious conversation about it. A serious conversation is what we want, hopefully.

Of course, it was too little, too late, but by those terms a success.

Your definition, on the other hand, is based on the presumption that there is never violence or harassment towards opponents of same-sex marriage, no stupid statements from the left ever, and that its unusual for large scale protests that occur in those numbers to have bad elements.

I don’t know how you’re going to begin to defend that. You’re simply grasping at straws.

” It has helped change the image of gay men from having sex lives like stray cats.”

And yet the stats, from the ‘sexual agreements’ of a plurality of long term homosexual male couples to the STD figures for ‘MSM’ available at the CDC, to the recent meningitis scare (and deaths) among homosexuals in New York (and West Hollywood), show that ‘gay’ men are as promiscuous as ever.

I don’t understand your closing statement, “Now all that’s left, in the eyes of many, is to manage the moment until the rest of the country catches up.” Since polls indicate that the majority of Americans now favor (or, at least, accept) gay marriage, and yet DOMA is still on the books, I should think that what we’re waiting for is for Washington to catch up to the rest of the country.

“if marriage and the sabbath are creation ordinances built into the universe and human nature”… But since they are not, and in fact they are both human constructs, we are free to reconceptualize marriage as we please, just as the pre-modern pre-Enlightenment people did (and do) conceptualize it as they please. Fortunately we have freedom for rational people in the modern era.

My definition is pretty simple, not just the fact that the support for the law dropped, but that so many in unprecedented numbers showed up, and just the fact that people were having a serious conversation about it.

And that conversation is shortly going to be over, because French gay couples are going to get married and adopt and the world will somehow keep turning on its axis. Everyone will forget they ever opposed it and the issue will fade into history.

“Changing the meaning of the institution, and allowing a whole class of marriages where the majority of couples are not committed to monogamy, is certainly not conservative.”

That’s exactly correct.

The next question then—taking it for granted that no-one really knows God’s view of the ultimate right or wrong of the matter—is what view is most likely prevail? The view that SSM should be a right, or the conservative view?

Clearly the trajectory of things answers the question, and thus the conclusion is that conservatives ought to take a long hard look at what’s really important and what they really want to be.

Seen as proponents and defenders of important and abiding traditional rights and ideas whose validity and import have been established by experience (instead of mere transient argument or rhetoric or polemics), with an ever-present conservative concern for least impinging on anyone’s rights?

Or being jerked around by lobbyists and God-talkers into defending any mere past practice or belief or perspective and going to war with anyone and everyone who holds some different views? I.e., to be mere reactionaries?

If you ask me the (hopeful) shedding of the jihad against SSM by the Republicans is maybe the only evidence in sight that the Party is capable of reforming itself into a real force without being effectively destroyed first. At least some evidence that it realizes that our educated modern citizenry doesn’t want a government that’s just a theocracy in disguise.

And if it looked, it would see an opportunity there in the growing dislike that the citizenry has with the Democrats and their ever-growing aspirations to install the theocracy of Political Correctness.

Well, I’m a moderate politically and a young voter, in my early 30s. I supported civil unions and I don’t think same-sex marriage is the end of the world, but I do think conservatives have rational concerns about legal implications, whether on policies for adoption agencies or on spousal benefits, and these things still have to be discussed politically. I believe there is a common ground that can be met, but in order for the common ground to be met conservatives have to represent their case well. In order for there to be a center, there needs to be a left and a right. Shutting down the discussion (like some libertarians seem to want) really helps nobody imo.

As to what Cliff is saying,

I’ve seen several polls lately — meaning more than one — that show a plurality support for the traditional marriage position. The same polls also show a plurality is against courts overturning DOMA. People in a super-majority think the states should decide, but tend to lean in favor of same-sex couples getting federal benefits. The second issue, of course, sounds good, but causes problems for states rights because of issues of portability of federal benefits between states and immigration policies. So that’s something that has to be discussed, like everything else. Again, shutting down the discussion helps nobody.

Barro explains the silence as coming from the fact that “a substantial share of the staffers at these publications, especially the younger ones, are now supporters of gay marriage,” and “Those who oppose gay marriage are sick to death of talking about the issue. They know they are losing the fight over public opinion and that their complaints are not going to convince anybody.”

—————————————————————

Sometimes a loss is a loss, and no amount of whining about the refs is going to change that.

“Or being jerked around by lobbyists and God-talkers into defending any mere past practice or belief or perspective and going to war with anyone and everyone who holds some different views?”

Well, I would think that to any conservative the phrase ‘mere past practice would be anathema. Past practice, in itself, should be given a lot of deference before being overturned.

But of course we have experience — 40 years of it — showing that the ‘liberation’ of male homosexuals has had, and continues to have, some pretty disastrous consequences. I mean, who would believe those old god-botherers had it right, that having a lot of horny young men free to engage in the sorts of acts that male homosexuals engage in without the social constraint of ‘the closet’ would have had some serious public health consequences.

And no, ‘marriage’ isn’t going to solve this — except for maybe the talented tenth. Studies and anecdotal show that, despite their marriages or long term relationships, male homosexuals continue to be promiscuous, seek sexual activity outside the supposed couple, and put themselves (and their regular partners) at risk for disease.

So it seems to me that the ‘mere past practice’, which almost always and everywhere has privileged heterosexual marriage (though not necessarily 1-1 marriage), and which has stigmatized what we now call ‘gay’ (even the Athenians were expected to marry a women, and have kids, even if they’d rather be involved with boys), had some sound reasons behind it.

But, since we are ditching mere ‘past practice’ — what reason do we have to object to incestuous marriages? What reason do we have to object to plural marriages? What’s so special about the number ’2′? What’s so horrible about boinking your niece if, after all, marriage has nothing to do with procreation?

We have had SSM in Massachusetts for 10 years. The social impact for anyone other than those married is zero. The number of LBGT people who actually want to get married or join the military is very small. The gay leadership focuses on these issues because they play well with average Americans and send anti-gay people into paroxysms of tortured illogic.

“Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Religion should not be used to decide who can use tax-payer funded services like civil marriage.

….how comforting to know that there are 3 GOP Senators who take seriously their sacred oath to uphold the US Constitution. How comforting to know that there are 3 GOP Senators who truly believe in …..”with Liberty and Justice for ALL”…..

On the legal front: The general legal opinion is that DOMA, the federal government’s attempt to negate SSM, is DoA. The really tricky question, which Scalia deliberately brought before the Court, involves the constitutionality of the California voter initiative that banned SSM.

If the Court overreaches and makes marriage discrimination unconstitutional in the US you have another Roe v. Wade, which Justice Ginsburg does not want. The other alternative is to thread some kind of judicial needle with regard to California, which Scalia will attack with his considerable legal skills.

M_Young wrote: “Studies and anecdotal show that, despite their marriages or long term relationships, male homosexuals continue to be promiscuous, seek sexual activity outside the supposed couple, and put themselves (and their regular partners) at risk for disease.”

So, should lesbian couples also be denied marriage rights just because males can’t behave themselves?

I sometimes wonder what the actual percentage of monogamous males in traditional marriages throughout history is. I wonder how many marriages, even “until death” ones were never sullied by infidelity on the part of the male partner.

It also could be that for normal people perpetual argument is a tiresome grind. If you accept the 7000 year and Judeo-Christian definition of marriage, no amount of argument can change your mind. If you are part of the counterculture that arose from the 60s and is the dominant culture in the West today, egalitarianism trumps tradition. For a traditionalist conservative, homosexual marriage is on par with calling a T-Bone steak a fruit. It just isn’t so no matter how often you say it is so.

In response to earlier comments, I think SSM is neither a conservative nor liberal issue, in its essence. It is primarily a moral issue.

The Catholic Church’s DOCTRINE regarding the morality of homosexual acts will not change. CANON LAW and CHURCH DISCIPLINE (ex.: can priests marry, can Catholics eat meat on Friday, etc.) can both be changed by the Church. But they are entirely different from doctrine.

“who would believe those old god-botherers had it right, that having a lot of horny young men free to engage in the sorts of acts that male homosexuals engage in without the social constraint of ‘the closet’ would have had some serious public health consequences.”

But M, in the first place there’s *lots* of human practices that have far more serious public health consequences than homosexuality. After all to refine the AIDS issue even further it really might be thought of as not a homosexual thing, but a sexual *practices* thing, right? (You know what I’m talking about.) That would presumably have afflicted and indeed might in the future afflict the heterosexual population just as virulently as it did and might continue to afflict the (male) homosexual population if that sexual practice becomes more common in the former.

And there’s lots of other far more mundane human practices that have far worse public health consequences too. E.g.: The promiscuous demand for antibiotics for every little thing. The absence of the habit of washing one’s hands before exiting the bathroom. Or of covering one’s mouth when one coughs or sneezes. Or even of shaking hands. Or, hell, what about that business people call “kissing”? (I mean … my God the horror of that when you think about it! Must have been *invented* by bacteria and viruses!)

And in the second place we’re talking about SS marriage here, and yet you bring up same-sex sex *itself,* which would logically imply you endorse making even *that* illegal.

In other words I think your logic “proves too much” as they say, but I’m glad you were forthright because it brings me back to what I said before: Conservatism has to choose what traditions and practices and ideas are “important and abiding” and fundamental, and which are not.

So what’s more important and abiding? Having the government snooping into bedrooms to make sure Mike and John are really reading poetry and not snogging each other? Or having the government decide who can declare their eternal love to whom?

Or keeping government within some reasonable bounds and treasuring the idea of personal liberty?

Should we have freedom to reconceptualize reality?
Sure. Why not?
Gravity? Go for it.
The family? Yep. What are you a trotskyite neanderthal?
Conservatism? Uhh…

But, but, but polls tell us that people think – as of the last 15 minutes in the evolutionary time frame – that a pre-political pre-constitutional institution fundamental to the next generation and all of society is something that resembles a jello mold.

To any that object to this state of affairs, obviously set in granite, we say “Let them eat jello”.
Or with the Red Queen (and not Marie Antoinette) “Off with their heads”.

Sounds like a wrap to me.

You cannot privilege the oxymoronic euphemism of homosexual marriage, without also opening wide the gates to any and pretty much all heterosexual relationship, such as incest or polygny. To do so is to commit the mortal sin of all hip atheists, discrimination.

As to why the Federal govt. has anything to do with the question, begs the same as to why the same is as big as it is in the first place – not anything a “conservative” cares about to be sure, in light of “reconceptualization”.

Gee Wally, I am going to be so happy when the US of Leviathan figures out how to chemically neuter/transgender all of it’s future citizens to the point unisex marriage will not even be needed, because of hydroponic hatching techniques.

There are things to discuss if people want to. Both sides seem to be stuck on talking points and sloganeering. The advocates say “marriage equality”, the opponents say “sanctity of marriage.” Both are pompous political nonsense. This isn’t a great civil rights crisis pitted against gay people, it also isn’t the government’s job to enforce religious sanctity.

If people stepped away from the slogans and the nonsense, they could have a discussion.

“The Catholic Church’s DOCTRINE regarding the morality of homosexual acts will not change. CANON LAW and CHURCH DISCIPLINE (ex.: can priests marry, can Catholics eat meat on Friday, etc.) can both be changed by the Church. But they are entirely different from doctrine.”

According to “Beggar Thy Neighbor” a history of debt by Charles Geisst, charging interest on loans was forbidden by Catholic Church doctrine based on Deuteronomy. The punishment was excommunication. Nevertheless, the book reports:
“… in 1830 the Congregation of the Holy Office under Pope Pius VIII recognized interest and suggested that those who charged it would not be disturbed by the Church… Almost two thousand years of canon law slowly faded from view.”

Michael Moore, I absolutely stand behind my statement. I’m sincerely sorry that so much of your energy and time are spent venting against the Catholic Church. I sincerely wish you more happiness and peace.

What can the Right do to Murkowski, anyway? Deny her the GOP renomination in 2016? They already did that in 2010, and she won as an independent write-in candidate. (Next time, she’ll presumably make it easier on herself by getting on the ballot as an independent so she doesn’t need to mount a write-in campaign.) Kick her out of the GOP Senate caucus? They need every vote they can get to win control in 2014. (And even if they narrowly win it, they’ll have a hard time keeping it in 2016 without her.) Basically, Murkowski owes conservatives–and indeed the GOP–nothing.

“But M, in the first place there’s *lots* of human practices that have far more serious public health consequences than homosexuality.”

Actually, given the relative size of the populations, that’s probably not true. Spend some time at CDC.gov. Search for MSM (not Main Stream Media, but Men having Sex with Men). It isn’t just aids. An anecdote telling us something about the health of ‘gay’ men: all three of the homosexuals involved in Lawrence vs. Texas are now dead– a mere 15 years after the events led to that decision took place. One died at 68 — not very out of ordinary, but still a bit young for the early 21st century. The others died in their 30s and 40s, respectively.

“An anecdote telling us something about the health of ‘gay’ men: all three of the homosexuals involved in Lawrence vs. Texas are now dead”

Another anecdote telling something about the morals of conservatives who oppose SSM on the basis of family values. The prosecutor, Blumenthal, who pursued this case so vigorously left office in disgrace after itwas revealed he was having an extramarital affair with his secretary. What is it about social conservatives and sex scandals???

“An anecdote telling us something about the health of ‘gay’ men: all three of the homosexuals involved in Lawrence vs. Texas are now dead– a mere 15 years after the events led to that decision took place.”

A.)

It’s interesting all by itself that you mention the Lawrence case, seeming to indicate you feel it was wrongly decided and that conservatism *should* be behind banning homosexual acts. And that’s because—like I said before—it’s so extreme a thing having the government police such bedroom matters that I hope it might cause you to reconsider its (alleged) conservative “smartness.”

B.)

As to those parties in the Lawrence case, as you noted Lawrence himself died at age 68, but then even more destructive of him being any example is that what he died of according to a Dallas newspaper was a mere “heart condition.”

And as to the other two, one was found beaten to death (with neither assailant nor motive ever being found apparently), and the other died of meningitis which, like “heart conditions (and while I’m no expert nor deeply read on the subject) I at least never heard of as being particularly linked to homosexual behavior.

Rethink thy position my friend, I enjoin you! Politics is about choosing, and a conservatism that tries to stand astride *all* of history yelling “stop” is destined for incoherence and from there the minor curiosity heap at best.